Group Therapy

Is Group Therapy a proper Biblical counseling technique?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

Greetings and welcome to Become a Competent Biblical Counselor. This is doctor Dave Jones, and today's subject is entitled Group Therapy. Here is a letter about a very important subject. It says My friend has been going to a group therapy session once each week. She says that this is great. Everyone has the opportunity to say what he wants and to ventilate his feelings no matter what they are. She claims that she is losing all of her hang ups, becoming a liberated woman. She thinks that I'd profit from going too. What do you think? Well, that's an interesting question, but of course I don't care really to answer the question about what I think. It doesn't really matter very much what I think unless what I think is what God thinks. So let's try to discuss this question from the viewpoint of what God's Word has to say about such matters. Group therapy sessions or group sessions of various sorts or encounter groups or all sorts of groups, you never can tell what that group is going to be like from the name that it bears. Even the groups bearing the same name and even with the same leaders from time to time vary so greatly that it's hard to predict what might go on. But these sorts of activities in groups with sensitivity training or whatever involved in them have become more and more a part of a working operation of many, even Bible-believing church and church organizations. And yet, when this happens, when such groups are brought uncritically into the church with their methods and with their viewpoints, we are bound to suffer from the consequences of bringing in unbelieving philosophies and viewpoints and methodologies, which are inconsistent with our Christian principles as they relate in the Word of God. Now, let me make one thing clear as I say these words and as I continue today. Certainly the Bible is not opposed to groups as such. The family is a group, God ordained the family. The church is a group, God gathered together the people out of every tongue and tribe and kindred and nation in order to form them into that group that He calls the church. Groups in and of themselves are not wrong. In our churches we have small groups, and we encourage them to develop. But the question is who is in the group? What is the purpose of the group? What are its methods? And that sort of thing. It's not that we're against groups. Being against groups is like being against motherhood, apple pie, and sunsets. But it's a matter of what the group is doing and why it's doing it, what its intentions and its methods are. Now let's examine the letter a bit. In this letter that I received there's a one day each week therapy session, supposedly. Well, the word therapy, of course, gives an indication to begin with that somebody thinks that some kind of ventilation has to do with solving medical problems. There to begin with is a non biblical viewpoint, but let's go past that quickly. This woman thinks it's great because she has an opportunity to say whatever she wants and to ventilate her feelings, and in this way by letting it all hang out. She thinks she's becoming liberated and losing her hang ups. Well, that sounds rather suspicious to me, and if the group to which she is going approximates what many groups do that are described in similar terms, then what is going on in that group seems to be very unscriptural kind of thing. Often in such groups they take this form. Everybody sits around the table and they say, Now, we're going to be completely open, we're going to tell everybody exactly what we think about everybody else. And so they begin systematically unlacing one another, taking out all the seams and then pulling out all the stuffing and throwing it all around the room. This of course has no value as Christians. Indeed, it is entirely opposed to what the Word of God has to say. We don't systematically cut other people, dice and cube them, and throw their stuffing around the room. There's nothing Christian about that. As a matter of fact, before we are even allowed to talk to another person about himself or what is wrong with him or what we do not like in him, we are told to take the log out of our own eye before we start looking for the speck in somebody else's eye. Not only that, this stress on ventilation of feelings is the most significant factor that has been mentioned. Feelings are stressed so dramatically in our society today because we live in a feeling oriented society. Instead of people being motivated and oriented by and toward the Word of God that is obediently seeking to do what God tells them in the scriptures, people instead do what they feel like doing, and they're encouraged to do so on every hand. We live in such a feeling oriented society that people won't even say any more what do you think about so and so? You're not allowed to have an opinion. They say what do you feel about such and such a subject? When my friends say that to me, I usually say just in order to remind them, of course, I usually say to them something like this Can't I have an opinion? May I only emote? Or if they say how do you feel about such and such a subject? I may say great or lousy, to let them know that we're talking about an opinion, we're talking about an idea, we're talking about a thought, we're talking about a reason, not only about feelings. Life is not just feeling. Feeling has its place, but it's far more than feeling. Now, this concept of ventilation is a very unbiblical one. For instance, the scriptures tell us all through the book of Proverbs, for instance, that the fool is the man who gives full vent to his spirit of anger, and in a group session, for example, that you might read about here or there, someone may be handed a pillow. Let's say the woman is handed a pillow and she's told now this is your mother. Now you have some feelings of anger toward your mother. Okay? Punch your mother. And she does half heartedly. No, no, no, says the group. Really, get in there, punch, punch, punch harder. And she's egged on and encouraged on until finally the fists are flying and eventually the pillar rips apart. And the feathers go flying all around the room. And that person has been encouraged in that group therapy session to murder her mother in effigy. The scriptures say that even hatred in the heart is murder in the heart. How much more even so this kind of encouragement by a group therapy session? No, you see, the answer is not to mimic and imitate the ways of the world, not to turn to such things as this. But the answer is to turn to the scriptures and define what God says to do about such problems as hatred or anger toward one's mother. If she is angry, it doesn't do any good to punch the pillow. It only makes her all the more angry and to feel all the more guilty for having done it afterwards. If she's angry, she should talk to God first about this matter. Secondly, she should go and talk to her mother and get the problem straightened right away. If you don't straighten out problems with another person by seeing his face on the golf ball or giving it a good swat, you don't straighten out problems with people by putting a face over the dartboard and throwing darts through the nose. You straighten out problems with people by doing the biblically courageous thing of going to them and talking to them and straightening out the matters with them, dealing with the issues in the problems and resolving them that way. So, my friend, you who write, let me encourage you to stay away from all such activities. Go to the group of people, the people who are involved in the problem, your mother, your father, your sister, your husband, your brother, the church member, whoever it is you have a problem with, and with whom you can find reconciliation and with whom you can get down on your knees in that group. That's the real group with which to deal with the problem. And one thing I want to bring attention to in this subject of reconciliation, remember that reconciliation always precedes worship. For example, in Matthew 5, 23 through 24 it says, Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. So be reconciled first, so that your prayers are not hindered. I hope this gives some clarity if there is any confusion with respect to group therapy. It's valuable provided that it's therapy that God has sanctioned. Have a great day, and I'll talk to you later.